The city of Yawata in Kyoto Prefecture will be using the DS as a tool for teaching English at an elementary school, Mainichi reports today. The program will start this April.

The school will be making use of IE Institute's Kageyama Hideo no Hanpuku Ondoku DS Eigo. Released in December, the title includes 600 words and 150 phrases, and features voice support for assisting students with pronunciation.

The city, which has been using the DS for learning purposes at junior high schools since 2007, has been testing DS-based English learning on fifth graders since Novembers. Following adoption of the new learning tool hearing test grade averages rose from 68.3% to 89.7%.

IE Institute told Mainichi that it has received requests for similar programs from throughout the nation, but only the Yawata school has made the final decision. Yawata city representatives, in attendance at a demonstration class for the new program, told the site that once they've seen long term success from the program, they'll look into expanding it to other schools.